I picked up a set of 13x5.5 cromodora wheels today. They are
the Iron Cross wheels that came on the early 80's spiders. They
need to be refinished. There are no dings or bends in them but
the silver paint is peeling. Has anyone taken off the paint and
polished them. What is the best way to remove the old paint w/o
scratching or pitting the wheels. I plan on clear coating them
after they are clean.
Many thanks again
Bob Furar
Butler Pa
1976 Fiat Spider

Bob I have the same rims and I completely refinished them
myself .60 sheets of 150-600 grit sandpaper. 10 drill buffing
wheels ,4 drill arbors, Jewelers roughe and 2 drills (one of
which was a fordham) and dirty hands for a month later they were
done. And the worst part about it is they're sitting in my
garage because I bought a set of 15" wheels.
In my opinion I dont like the look of the wheels in polished
aluminum. The outer ring looks good polished but the 4 arrows
look better blacked out. Good Luck Chris Zenda.
Forty-Fort Pa.
2000 Nissan Xterra
1995 Yamaha V-Max
1993 Honda Prelude V-Tec
1980 Spider 2000 dual 13/15 Idf's waffle manifold.

If you don't want them polished you can glass bead blast them. I
did this on my Alfa that was at FFO '99. You can get a siphon
blaster for about $50. Saves a lot of time. I used eastwood
rally wheel paint.
Jon Ranney
Royalton, VT
88 Yugo GV
90 Yugo Cabrio
76 Alfa Romeo Alfetta GTV
97 Nissan 200SX SE-R
91 Chevy Suburban

Bob
You could look for a shop that blasts with plastic beads
The plastic removes the paint but doesn't mark the aluminum.
I am having some Bertone mags blasted and powder coated black as
we speak. The trick then is to sand the paint off of the areas
you want silver and then wax them.
Warren,
87 Bertone
98 VW Golf K2
99 Caravan

bob furar wrote:
: I picked up a set of 13x5.5 cromodora wheels today. They are
: the Iron Cross wheels that came on the early 80's spiders.
They
: need to be refinished. There are no dings or bends in them
but
: the silver paint is peeling. Has anyone taken off the paint
and
: polished them. What is the best way to remove the old paint
w/o
: scratching or pitting the wheels. I plan on clear coating
them
: after they are clean.
: Many thanks again
: Bob Furar
: Butler Pa
: 1976 Fiat Spider
I am in AZ and there is a Redi-Strip franchise not too far away.
They have cleaned all of my steel parts of rust and old paint.
Saved me many, many hours and many, many $$$ in grinding/sanding
materials.
I asked them about removing some old paint on otherwise clean
1981 BMW Alum wheels and they do it. BUT they have to use, I
believe it is methylene chloride. Redi Strip here in AZ has
always produced very nice results and saves tons of my time.
But the methylene chloride for stripping the painted AL was
about $25 per wheel, I believe. If you are OK with the price
and this is based on the value of your time to you, I would go
with a Redi Strip franchise if there is one within reasonable
distance from you.